How I Became So Nerdy

Nerd Talk heads to March For Science Seattle 4/22 Cal Anderson Park

The March for Science Seattle gathers the nerds together in Cal Anderson Park (and around the nation) because science is the best method for understanding the natural world. Wizards are cool, but obviously, their magic is forbidden.

Science can produce fantastic emotions, but thanks to science, we don't let our emotions decide the facts about both our living and the inanimate world around us. Unless you find the portal to the wizarding world and your magic can defy physics and chemistry, in which case, good for you!

I grew up the son of a nuclear engineer and a school teacher. That's probably all I need to say about why I'm such a nerd.

My mother (the teacher) would never turn me down for going to the Natural History Museum so I could see the dinosaurs and stomp around the magma exhibit roaring like a tiny little idiot. When I got home, my engineer father would tell me to play with Legos and build something cool. These people set me up nicely!

As a kid, my wall was covered with posters of the jets, planes, and fast flying stuff (including Michael Jordan). My favorite poster, that giant super wing of the Stealth Bomber. Some day, when they decommission that sucker, let's petition hard to get one at the Museum of Flight. My favorite non-Star Wars movies were Top Gun and The Hunt For Red October, films where we used engineering to make awesome vessels for war. I've since mellowed out about war machines, but that wonder of how the world works and how to alter it with my own ideas is ingrained in me. I like to use it to think about how to make the Earth thrive and less about killing stuff.

Most importantly to me, while I don't pretend to have even the smallest grasp of the super faceted debate on climate change - and neither do you - it is pretty simple to understand that our behavior has a consequence. When a volcano erupts and it's particulate travels around the world or a wildfire rages and the surrounding cities get covered in ash, we don't argue about it. When it's about us burning stuff for energy or throwing plastic in the ocean, it becomes this weird raging debate fought often between people with evidence and those with opinions. When it becomes the country's mission to take the funding from the people who are trying to understand our impact, I get worried. When reason makes way for emotion, we're in trouble.

Now is the time to let the people who do have a grasp on the incredibly complicated nuance involved in our relationship with the Earth spread their wings. Now is the time to push harder than ever to make sure we do as little damage to the world as possible so that humanity can continue. Short of exploding this whole damn marble, the Earth will continue to exist with or without us, I just prefer to thrive rather than being wiped out. If we can make decisions using science rather than conjecture, maybe we as a species survive.

Otherwise, maybe in 200 million years, the cockroach people will visit museums filled without our skeletons.

Or maybe we'll just nuke the crap out of each other and this is all pointless? For now, let's assume we're gonna make and I'll see you at the march.